


Enough

by katonline



Series: South Downs [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, F/M, Friendship, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mutual Pining, Sequel, Two Dumb Pine Trees
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:54:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25644610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katonline/pseuds/katonline
Summary: In the wake of a painful separation, Aziraphale struggles to reconcile his head and his heart.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: South Downs [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1463935
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





	1. i

i.  
_June, 2500 BC_

The low hills of Wiltshire roll away into the gathering dark.

He feels him before he sees him - the feeling of a fog creeping closer, curious fingers swirling around his ankles, tickling the arches of his feet. There’s a question in it. He hasn’t quite figured out what it’s asking yet.

“Hello, my dear,” he says absently. Out on the fields, the fires are still burning. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” says a slow, low voice - a voice with a laugh in it, a voice Aziraphale knows all too well. Even though he shouldn’t know it at all. It should be as foreign to him as the stars.

“Here to watch the pagans?” 

“Energetic bastards, aren’t they?” Crawly grins, razor-sharp, and unwillingly, Aziraphale smiles back, compelled by those gleaming teeth. “All that leaping and dancing and chanting.”

“It’s quite beautiful, I think.” The long soft grass bends low in the wind, grazing his bare calves, a caress from the Creator. Beautiful indeed. Mist rises from the hot, damp ground. It’s all so new, really. How can the demon seem so comfortable here?

“Beautiful?” It comes as a scoff. “Aren’t you supposed to be leading them to the Light of the Lord?”

“Well, people have to come to that in their own time,” Aziraphale replies, rather defensively. “I find it rather charming.”

“Dead clever,” Crawly admits, sliding in a rather boneless way to the ground, crossing his long legs beneath him. “Heaving great big rocks up like that. What do you think it _means_?”

The demon Crawly, always asking questions. It’s gotten him in trouble before. One hears talk, even here on Earth. Aziraphale drops down next to him with much less grace, feeling again that really, he shouldn’t be here. And yet, they seem to find each other, wherever they go.

“Have you been drinking?” The angel asks primly. Crawly grins in response, passes him a wineskin. Aziraphale drinks deeply, pauses, drinks again. He hands it back, and the demon flops back on the grass. After a moment, Aziraphale lays back too, dizzy. Whatever’s in that wineskin, it’s nothing Aziraphale is used to. 

“I like it here,” the demon says with relish. “Maybe one day, after it’s all sorted out, I’ll retire. Get a little place. Grow a garden. Keep beessss.”

“Bees?” Aziraphale snorts, not very angelically. “You’re sodden.”

Crawly sits up, whip-fast, and he’s staring down at Aziraphale without blinking. In the dark it’s hard to make out his features except those blazing yellow eyes, half-lidded, pupils dilated in the night. Long red curls tumble down over his shoulder, lush and wild. Aziraphale can’t truly describe what they feel like. Silk, maybe. And flame. 

He shouldn’t know what it feel likes. But Aziraphale struggles with temptation.

Crowley doesn’t say anything. He just looks at Aziraphale, a long, searching, quizzical look, as if there’s a question he doesn’t dare ask. He’s just yellow eyes in the dark: seeing Aziraphale, underneath the body, as he did on the wall in Eden. Seeing him as none of the humans, and none of the angels either, can see him. Soaking him in. Burning him into his memory. And Aziraphale thinks, I’ve got you now. I’ll know that look anywhere.

“D’you want to have some fun?” Crawly asks suddenly, breaking the spell. 

“I beg your pardon?”

“Let’s move ‘em,” Crawly says, a look of pure delight illuminating his angular face. 

“Move what?” Aziraphale asks, bewildered, but the demon’s already up, robes kilted, tromping across the fields to where the hulking monoliths rise, silent, in the dark. “Crawly! _Move_ \- you can’t be serious! I can’t meddle like that!”

“Angel,” he scoffs, “you know everything we do is meddling. All of it will change their history. It’s part of the job.”

“Well, but - well,” he pants lightly, high grass whispering as they pass through. “I’m not supposed to get involved with them.”

“Oh, come now, angel,” the voice drifts back to him. “You know as well as I do: if we’re down here, we’re going to get involved. It’s inevitable. In-ineffable.” 

“There’s no _we_.” 

“Oh, come off it. Supernatural forces, plural.” That sharp, curling smile. “Ineffable,” Crawly says again, with relish.

Aziraphale grimaces, but then laughs. Because Crawly’s right, of course. He can’t resist playing with the humans any more than the demon can.

He stops suddenly, and Aziraphale nearly runs into the narrow body before him. Crawly is gazing out, staring at the stones, and then he looks back at Aziraphale. The angel can feel it, more than see it. The look on his face can only be described as devilish. 

And really, Aziraphale should stop him. 

But then they’re both running, and they’re laughing, skidding down through the fields towards the stones. Thunder rumbles low overhead. Crawly leans down and laces his long, slender fingers through the soil. The stones groan and shift deep in the Earth. The engineering may be clever, but it’s only human.

Rain starts to fall and they’re still laughing, slipping and sliding in the wet grass, heaving and throwing their shoulders against the bluestones. Aziraphale, whose corporeal form has never suggested strength, nevertheless is shifting them right along the slick, rail-thin, determined Crawly, who has shed his robe and whose pale skin gleams in the wash of starlight, hair dark as earth and plastered down his back, eyes glowing: two lightning bugs frozen in time. 

They might be immortal, but Aziraphale feels young. 

When they finally, inevitably, collide, they land hard, with a yelp and a laugh and then silence, breath knocked out of their lungs. Crawly’s mud-streaked ribs heave, somehow cool even in the steaming night. Aziraphale feels like he has run for miles. His heart is hammering against the walls of his chest. But why? He doesn’t even need it. Why does this vestigial organ always beat faster for this irrepressible, infernal creature?

“You have grass in your hair,” Crawly laughs, breathless, reaching out those long fingers to pluck it free. He doesn’t sound drunk anymore. Their legs tangle in the rain-drenched grass, his fingers whisper-light in Aziraphale’s white-blonde hair. The air seems to close around them. Aziraphale’s breath is tight in his throat. And against his will, he’s drawn in. 

Aziraphale kisses him.

Again. _Why do I always seem to be kissing this maddening, rebellious demon?_

The demon’s mouth, unlike his skin, is warm and soft. It yields without an instant’s hesitation, hands dropping from his hair and instead cupping the angel’s cheeks, and Aziraphale pulls him closer, onto his broad lap, the demon sliding easily up against the softness of Aziraphale’s body. He touches Crawly’s hair then, long and wet and slipping without a tangle through his own pale fingers, wrapping around his wrists and palms. The demon tips his head back, the angel’s mouth finds his throat. 

Thunder rolls overhead and suddenly Aziraphale stops, aware of how exposed they are. Crawly wriggles in his lap, impatient, but Aziraphale says “hush.”

“Angel, what’s the matter?”

“We can’t keep meeting like this.”

“Why not?” He feels the demon smile against his mouth. “Why ever not, Angel? Don’t tell me you haven’t been enjoying yourself.”

Aziraphale inhales deeply. Under the smell of the rain and the meadow and the dying bonfires, the smell of Crawly: sulphur, linen, wine and something else too; earth, and - disconcertingly - flowers. The haunting perfume of crushed apple blossoms. The smell of the Garden. 

“My dear,” he murmurs, trying and failing to stop Crawly from kissing his neck. “They’re bound to be watching us.”

“Who? The pagans? They don’t care, they’re all for a bit of debauchery -”

“No. Erm, no. Crawly, will you -” he manages to pull Crawly’s strong, supple arms away from his waist with regret, “No. Head Office. Both of them, most probably.”

That brings him up short. “Oh.” Aziraphale feels all the strength rush out of Crawly, like water breaching a dam. “Right.”

The weight leaves his lap. He feels bereft. Crawly has pulled the long, rough robe back over his head and has tied his hair behind him. His eyes are dull. He offers Aziraphale his hand, helps him to stand.

“Well, shall I walk you back to the village?”

Aziraphale stands, suddenly stiff with the chill rolling off the meadows. They walk in silence. The demon’s hand on his arm is all business, and he drops it when they reach a tavern; even as Aziraphale ducks to enter, Crawly lingers at the door. 

Aziraphale turns, takes in the leaden eyes, considers asking him to stay for a drink, changes his mind. He tries several quips in his mind but they all fall flat. Crawly waits for a moment, silent, and then: “Right. Be seeing you.” 

“Crawly - ” He hesitates, and then adds, “Perhaps next time we’re in the neighborhood, we’ll see about the bees.”

The grin comes again, unwilling, and a tang of sulfur hangs in the air as Crawly turns away with a laconic wave. Aziraphale’s hands still cup the doorknob, and, briefly, he closes his eyes. The sun is beginning to rise. _Enough_ , he scolds himself. _Let this be enough._

Aziraphale raises his blue eyes to the pale sky. “Forgive me,” he mutters, touching his forehead in supplication, a trace of shame. “Lord, forgive me.” Knowing, even as he says the words, that he’s going to do it again.

*** _March 2020_ *** 

He’s gone.

Aziraphale staggers to his feet, the enormous weight of Crowley’s palpable anguish having knocked the wind out of him. But the doorway is vacant, the wood still vibrating from Crowley slamming it behind him.

He’s _gone!_

A sudden haze films over the wide blue eyes and he stumbles, blindly reaching out to steady himself on the nearest object before his knees buckle. He sags into the chair that, only moments before, cradled the narrow body of the demon who looked at Aziraphale with such naked grief. And he couldn’t stop talking, those hateful words tumbling out of his stupid mouth, a rush to try and make Crowley understand. Good God, had he really said those things?

But he did. And now Crowley’s gone.

The chair is still warm underneath his thighs. 

Why can’t he understand, blast it? Gabriel is a vindictive blight on Heaven, and the rest of them are even worse. Aziraphale can’t bear to remember the icy, dreadful feeling of the hatred Hell’s denizens bear towards Crowley.

“Well,” he croaks. He has to say something, anything, to break this dreadful silence. Even if his voice shakes. “One must be sensible. Why can’t he appreciate a little discretion? It hasn’t hurt us before. It’s just another kind of Arrangement. Nothing has to change.”

He expects Crowley to come back that night. When he doesn’t, Aziraphale’s shame turns to a hard pit of irritation.

“Let him sulk,” he says out loud, stacking books aimlessly in an effort to keep himself busy. “He’ll see sense. He’ll be back. He always is. Stubborn old serpent.”

Only this time, he isn’t.

Days pass. Aziraphale walks past Crowley’s apartment building, but the Bentley is nowhere to be found. Aziraphale reminds himself that this is, after all, the same creature who spent a century sleeping just to win an argument. He spends an awkward afternoon at the Ritz, staring across their usual table at Crowley’s empty chair. With dread, Aziraphale begins to suspect that this time may be different. 

After a week, Aziraphale swallows his pride and makes the first phone call. It doesn’t ring, but the sound of Crowley’s familiar voice is jarring. He always picks up. Even when confronted with Hastur, Ligur’s body bubbling on the floor of his study - still he picked up. Aziraphale feels his frown deepen. He takes a deep breath. 

“Crowley, it’s me, erm - I think this is your ansaphone - anyway, I - please call me. I didn’t see the Bentley at the flat when I was, well, in the neighborhood today. Please, dear, would you stop by? I’ve gotten used to seeing you every day.” Just contrite enough to get him back to the shop, surely.

But Crowley doesn’t appear, and Aziraphale can’t shake the feeling that something, truly, is different this time. The knot of aggravation in his chest blooms into something else - a sharp, squeezing anxiety that he cannot shake, no matter how much he paces, no matter how many cups of tea he makes and abandons throughout the bookshop.

*** _April 2020_ *** 

He isn’t a runner, but he feels as though he could race from the entrance of St. James’s to their usual bench. _How stupid I’ve been,_ he says to himself. _Of course I’ll find him here! I’ve been everywhere else more times than I can count, and no sign of him. How silly of me to not come here first. He must be here. I can feel him. Surely I'll be able to feel him._

And then, after all, he does break into a run. People look askance at the strange, soft man in stuffy old-fashioned clothes hurrying along the path, but he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t care. Focused on Crowley, he forgets to feel soft or ridiculous or self-conscious. Relief sweeps through him. _He must be here. He’s certainly going to be here. We can always find each other here._

He rounds the corner, beaming, and then draws up short. There’s a man on their usual bench, sure enough, but it’s not Crowley. A dark-haired man, with his arm around a blonde girl, feeding the ducks. 

Incensed, Aziraphale marches up to them, puffing and red-faced from his sprint. They start, alarmed at this sudden intrusion, and Aziraphale manages to ask: “Pardon me, but was there perhaps a man sitting here when you arrived? Tall, thin, with dark red hair? He’d have been wearing sunglasses?”

“No, mate, sorry,” the man replies. Aziraphale can’t bear to see the pity in the woman’s eyes. He turns abruptly - quite rudely, he reflects later - and retreats out of the park. Clouds are gathering, but whether it’s on his account or simply London weather he can’t be sure. He scatters a flock of pigeons without thought. And when he reaches the gate, his mind is blank; he cannot think of a single place to go.

“ _Fuck_ ,” says Aziraphale, louder than he means to. But he can’t give up. Not yet. 

He punches in the familiar number by rote. Again. And again. Straight to voicemail. Straight to voicemail, every time. Sometimes he leaves a message. Most of the time he doesn't. Sometimes he just calls to listen, just to hear his voice. It's not enough.

And so that night he paces his usual path in the park, a garden he’d imagined was all theirs despite the humans clogging it up. He walks briskly, at first, and then each night the pace slows, dragging his feet, hoping if he dawdles that Crowley will catch up to him. Surely he’ll find him here in the park. 

Nights pass. Time keeps wheeling past him, the usual bright blur, and yet the days seem to drag on and on. But at night he can’t stay still. He never could quite feel comfortable sleeping. He can’t turn his mind off like that.

“Where are you?” He asks the dark, curling and uncurling his fingers. Sometimes he clutches a book in his trembling hands. Sometimes he reaches over and breaks a flowering blossom from a tree. 

He used to take my hand, Aziraphale thinks. And I would shake him off. Why did I shake it off?

He can almost fool himself, if he closes his eyes, his path so well-worn that he walks by muscle memory now. He can almost feel the cool, dry palm sliding into his. The long fingers, the soft, tender rub of his thumb against Aziraphale’s wrist. But his hands are empty, so he fills them: books. Plants. Bread for the ducks. Sometimes he just knots them tightly in prayer - but the words don’t come.

The nights pass. Crowley doesn’t call. St James feels cold and empty, like the Garden after Adam and Eve were banished. The ducks are avoiding him. He crumbles the bread and leaves it behind.

He could walk the whole city, and so he does. From the bookstore through the park to the Mayfair flat, and back again. Sometimes he walks along the dirty river, remembering the punts they once balanced in. The stairs, slimy with age, where once maybe they sat - here? Or over here?

Their bench, miraculously, is always empty now. No young couples would dare to risk sitting there. Bad vibes, they whisper.

Crowley doesn’t call.

*** _July 2020_ *** 

He stands on the balcony of Crowley’s flat, door to the austere bedroom open behind him. One more try, he thinks. Just one more. And then I’ll stop.

“I bet all these are from me, aren’t they? I just wanted to say that you were right all along, Crowley, I should have trusted you. Sometimes when I’m sad and drunk like now I hope you’ll listen to these and know what a pitiful mess you left me. Mostly I hope you’ve thrown this mobile in the rubbish bin somewhere. I don’t even know where you sleep at night, my love. I should have never let you leave that day. Oh, Crowley, I -”

“The voicemail is full”. 

Aziraphale stares at the mobile in his hand. Full. Of course. It must be. Because Aziraphale is empty, so empty.

“It’s what I wanted”, he says suddenly, with bitterness. “This is what I wanted. Wearing a path through the city won’t change this. Calling him won’t change this. There is no “we”, just like I always insisted.”

He takes a deep breath, and then he winds back and hurls the mobile. It glitters as it arcs through the sky, landing somewhere Aziraphale can’t see. A sob wracks his shoulders and, willing his tears not to fall, he looks up to the sky. The light pollution is too strong to see the stars here. 

“Crowley,” he whispers. “Wherever you are. I hope you can see every single one.”

*** _September 2020_ *** 

“Mr. Fell, pet! Come in, come in. Come out of this dreadful weather,” Madame Tracy clucks. She pulls Aziraphale into the foyer, hands surprisingly strong on his wrists. The feel of her grip on him is a comfort. She’s just like warm bath water, easy to relax into. He lets himself be propelled into her tidy lounge. She parks him on a velvet settee, bustles around him, fussing and beaming. He returns the smile, albeit weakly. He’ll always be fond of Madame Tracy. After all, he knows what her heartbeat sounds like from the inside.

“Please. You must call me Aziraphale,” he reminds her, accepting the tea and biscuits she thrusts into his cold hands. She bobs her head and sits down next to him, neat and trim. Married life suits her, and he tells her so. They can hear Shadwell grunting and clomping above their heads.

“He keeps busy, the old dear,” she smiles serenely, secure in her life in this post-non-Apocalyptic London. Aziraphale feels that stab of anxiety tighten. For a moment, he struggles to summon a breath, coughing before he can make the necessary reply.

After more biscuits and benign chatter and yet another cup of tea, her eyes narrow at him. “What are you keeping to yourself, then? I can see something’s bothering you.”

“Well, I suppose it is, yes,” Aziraphale answers. “You see, I...well, I can’t find Cr - em, Anthony.”

“Can’t find him? Whatever do you mean? Have you looked at his apartment?”

“Yes,” he replies patiently. 

“And the park?”

“Yes.”

“And the Ritz?” Aziraphale nods, remembering the embarrassment, several months back, of sitting at their usual table, a cup of tea growing cold in front of him before apologizing to the maitre’d and retreating, head bowed. The mortification of finding other lovers on their bench. Realizing painfully that, unbelievably, the Earth has dared to continue spinning without Crowley beside him.

“And the -” she stops, suddenly, at a strange huffing sound, like the air leaking from a punctured tire. Aziraphale leans heavily on his knees, his face in his palms, white-gold hair in disarray as though he’s been tugging it distractedly, hoping for a lightning-strike of inspiration. Thick, gold liquid drips between his fingers and falls to the pink shag carpet at his feet. His shoulders tremble against the sounds leaking from his downturned mouth. It’s disconcerting, these molten tears. She knows, of course, that he’s not quite human. She can’t put a finger on what, exactly, he is - but he’s different.

Different has never bothered Madame Tracy. She sets her cup and saucer down with a clatter and rubs his back as he sobs, silently, on the rose velvet settee. Falteringly, he leans against her, hastily scrubbing his eyes with the back of his sleeve. She wraps thin arms around him as he weeps. Shadwell appears, warily, but a look from his wife sends him back upstairs.

“I’ve looked everywhere, for months,” he says, his voice cracking. “It’s been months, you see. We had a fight, and I was so _stupid_ , and then - I can’t find him,” he hiccoughs, face flushed and shimmering slightly from the tears. Madame Tracy rubs his arms briskly, mind spinning as she thinks of some way, any way, to help the broken man weeping on her settee.

“Now, then,” she says firmly, handing him a handkerchief which once might have been white but is now yellowed with age. “None of that, love. Come. Over here, that’s right.” She walks to the entry and begins rummaging through her handbag, as Aziraphale obediently follows her, mopping the shining tears from his cheeks. “Now. We’ll call Anathema. She and Mr. Crowley was quite chummy, wasn’t they, after we all met up in Tadfield? And she told me, last time we spoke, they’ve been spending lots of time together. What a charming girl she is. And she can see the future, she can. She’s dead clever with fortunes and crystals and all that lovely mystical to-do.”

“Witchcraft!” comes a shout from the landing. They both ignore it, as Madame Tracy begins to scroll through the contacts on her mobile. 

“Here, love,” she insists, pressing the mobile into Aziraphale’s hands. “Call Anathema. She’ll know.” 

Shadwell has braved the tears in order to retrieve his own helping of biscuits. He eyes his wife and Aziraphale dubiously, unnerved a little by the flood of emotion in his sitting room. “Yer nae callin’ on tha witch?”

Madame Tracy nods, with a smile on her lips that doesn’t reach her eyes. Aziraphale stares at the numbers on the screen. “Her name is Anathema, my love.”

He clutches the mobile so tightly he can hear the crackle of glass, and Madame Tracy tuts, recalling him to the moment. The line rings, and then a gentle, low-pitched voice fills the air around him. 

“Hello, Aziraphale,” says the witch.

***

At first, he doesn’t think that she’ll agree to see him. Surely, if she’s friends with Crowley, she’s loyal to him, protective of him.

And she is. But not in the way Aziraphale expects.

He meets her in Lower Tadfield, the place uncomfortably familiar, like a toothache one keeps probing for weeks and weeks. She folds her hands in her lap, brown eyes bright and ancient. And he is speechless.

“He’s safe,” she says, reading the pain in his eyes. He drops his gaze to the floor, his shoes tied neatly, his trousers pressed and creased. Never have his clothes been so neat. Ironing replaces walking, for a little while.

Anathema seems to wince as he looks up at her again, as though a bright light is shining directly in her eyes. But she meets his gaze, unwavering.

“Does he - has he asked about me?”

She smiles, a small pitying smile, and a jolt of pain cracks through him. Of course not, he thinks. Why would he? Why would he ask, after what I’ve said?

“I keep calling him,” Aziraphale says. 

“He has a new mobile.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale replies. “Of course.” His mouth trembles, eyes threatening to overflow. Anathema takes his hand, and he feels her squeeze.

Like a lifeline. Someone who knows them both. This flimsy connection, this quiet link. Aziraphale, hand shaking, squeezes back.

“Won’t you come in?” Anathema asks. 

With nowhere else to go, Aziraphale follows her inside.


	2. ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How long?” He repeats the question. She’s curled up on her sofa, brown feet tucked under her legs, steaming mug of tea in her hands. When she takes a drink, it fogs up her glasses. “Er. Since the beginning.”
> 
> “The beginning of what?” She asks, and then she laughs when he just raises an eyebrow at her. “Oh. The _beginning_ beginning.”
> 
> ***
> 
> Aziraphale lets down his guard.

_*** November 1894 ***_

“Asa,” he says. The voice jerks the angel back to the present: held snug in the small, warm sitting room. Bleak, gray rain slants against the windows of the Albemarle. A fire that should be cheerful burns low in the grate and the gaslights, dimmed, do little to illuminate the man seated across from Aziraphale. His eyes, an unremarkable hazy color, study Aziraphale with an odd, fixed expression. It’s unnerving, when he looks this way. One doesn’t like to be on the receiving end of it, Aziraphale reflects, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. A long, probing, hard look. An artist’s look. Hungry and relentless.

“Hm?”

“Why haven’t I seen that moody ginger for a spell? Seems he’s always hanging around you.”

Aziraphale pauses, wine glass raised halfway to his lips. It’s irritating, sometimes, what Oscar seems to fixate on. He can’t summon the energy to spar with his companion tonight, regardless of the bait. It’s the plain truth: while he should have been paying attention to Oscar, he’s been thinking about Crowley.

He’s always thinking about Crowley, if he’s honest with himself.

Instead he replies, “Who?”

“You know.” Oscar leans back, his large frame filling the leather club chair. Outside the private reading room, honey-laced voices and the deep laughter of men pass by. The club is discreet, but anything but empty. “Your chap Crowley. Anthony, isn’t it? Who so charmingly refused an invitation to this fine establishment. Called me a flash bastard, if I remember rightly. I thought you two were close.”

Close. Aziraphale snorts softly without meaning to. _Close, I suppose, is one word for it._

“He’s not ginger,” Aziraphale replies, regretting the snappish words as soon as they leave his throat. Oscar grins, scraping against the rawness of Crowley’s absence, goading Aziraphale into a decision. He won’t be staying in Oscar’s bed tonight. Maybe he won’t stay there ever again. _Ginger, indeed._

“We had a...disagreement,” Aziraphale continues, voice flat, discouraging any further conversation about this particular demon-shaped subject. “Regarding business.”

“Ah, yes.” Oscar chuckles, low in his throat. He ignores Aziraphale’s pointed tone. “Your business partner, that’s right.” Those penetrating eyes are full of mirth. He spreads his arms wide. “I do believe we are at the club, Asa. You can drop the pretense. It’s only me.”

Aziraphale is unsure why Oscar is pushing the matter. After all, with Crowley gone, Aziraphale is able to spend more and more time at the club, cavorting with the rowdy and delightful scoundrels Wilde insists on surrounding himself with, despite the talk that has been swirling about him. A bit of rough trade, Crowley had said with a disapproving scowl. 

“Truly,” the angel replies, crossing and uncrossing his ankles with a nervous energy, taking a large and hasty swallow. “He’s only a business associate. I assume he’s off traveling, sourcing new inventory. He’ll turn up eventually.”

It’s been nearly a year, of course, and it’s a flimsy story, but Aziraphale doesn’t elaborate. Oscar’s pale eyes glitter with humor - perhaps a little maliciously, at that. He leans forward and puts a heavy hand on Aziraphale’s knee, squeezing lightly. His long face is easy enough to read, but tonight Aziraphale can’t bring himself to respond tonight.

“You don’t need to lie to me, Asa,” he replies, softly. “I know you.”

Finally, the anxious pout is relieved by a smile. Dear, arrogant, foolish Oscar. No one knows him. Not really.

There is a curious twist in his chest. Pain, and something darker. Something that’s caught fast, unable to break free.

Aziraphale changes the subject.

_*** October 2020 ***_

It’s his second visit to the witch’s cottage. For some incomprehensible reason, she seems to like him. She’s the one who invited him back. Like a sadist, he came at her call - hoping, selfishly, that perhaps she’ll give him more information about Crowley.

“How long?” He repeats the question. She’s curled up on her sofa, brown feet tucked under her legs, steaming mug of tea in her hands. When she takes a drink, it fogs up her glasses. “Er. Since the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?” She asks, and then she laughs when he just raises an eyebrow at her. “Oh. The _beginning_ beginning.”

“Practically,” he says wryly. That’s one thing he enjoys about Anathema’s company - she’s entirely unfazed by the whole...angelic thing. 

Probably he has Crowley to thank for that.

“So, if it’s been since the _Beginning_ ,” she reasons, “surely you’ve had disagreements before.”

“Oh, yes,” he replies. “Scores of them, I couldn’t even begin to tell you. But this was different.”

She doesn’t ask him to clarify - just studies him with those large, dark eyes that make you confess things you never intended to confess. Aziraphale isn’t immune to it. “It was different…” he considers. “Well, because...it just felt different, I suppose.” He swallows. “ _He’s_ been different, since the whole nasty business last summer. He’s gotten attached, I suppose, to the idea that they’re going to just leave us alone now. Which is absurd,” he adds bitterly.

She waits.

“It is!” He says, indignantly. He pushes the throw blanket off of his lap, stands up irritably. “You can’t ignore the possibility that they’re just waiting. Biding their time, as it were. They’ve got all the time in the world. I can’t risk it. I don’t think we’d get any special considerations if they were to target us again. Not after last time.”

She arches an eyebrow, and Aziraphale considers this. Obviously, Crowley has told her much of what happened - the empty spots in her memory are remarkably clear, for someone whose memory was meant to be wiped by the Antichrist. But there’s some things he’s kept private, things like the absolute horror in watching those monsters try to take away the kindest, most generous, dearest creature he has ever encountered. He wells up a little at the thought.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she offers quietly. They sit, wrapped in a deep sense of discomfort - the oppressive absence of Crowley, this shared link between them - for a long moment.

“I let him down,” Aziraphale says finally, inadequately, voice catching as he exhales. He laughs, a little shakily. “That’s what it amounts to, really. I had him and I let him down. I let him go. _Stupid_.”

“People make mistakes, Aziraphale. It doesn’t make them stupid. It makes them human.” She smiles and shakes her head when he opens his mouth. “Yes, even you. Even him. I think you’ve been here long enough to pass, don’t you?”

Anathema puts down the mug of tea, and stretches across to cover Aziraphale’s hand with her own. And he realizes, it’s not just Crowley - he came back for _her_ , too.

_*** July 2019 ***_

Crowley’s in a bad mood. He’s often in a bad mood lately - tense, harassed-looking, eyes more venomous than usual. He’s lost his usual easy politeness to waitstaff, baristas, pedestrians. He snaps at everyone, even Aziraphale. Now he’s staring at the pond, not seeing it. He’s chewing his lower lip, caught between sharp teeth that Aziraphale can’t take his eyes off.

“My dear,” Aziraphale ventures. Crowley doesn’t turn his head. “Are you going to tell me what’s the matter?”

Crowley says nothing. Instead, he pelts a hapless duck with a particularly well-aimed crust of bread, but even the outraged quack does nothing to lift the grim furrow of his brow.

“He’s just a boy,” he says finally. “I mean, obviously. He was a baby. But I suppose I thought they’d wait a while. Until he was grown, like. This new one - whoever it is - he’s a child.” He swallows. “ _Warlock_ is a child.”

“But Warlock is safe -”

“We’ll never see him again,” Crowley cuts Aziraphale off, voice salty as a cut lip. “You do know that, don’t you? I don’t know what they’ll do to the family. Wipe their memories, tear them to pieces - doesn’t matter.” His jaw trembles slightly. “Doesn’t matter one bit to you, does it?”

“Of course it matters,” he objects. “I took care of him too, Crowley, you can’t-”

“No,” Crowley says viciously, whipping his head to glare at Aziraphale. “You didn’t. You didn’t change his diapers. You didn’t sing him to sleep. You didn’t wipe his little disappointed tears when his parents ignored him, did you, Angel? You didn’t rub his warm little back after a nightmare. You didn’t do any of that. I did, _me_. He was my -” he stops, breaks off, as if he cannot bear to say another word. 

Aziraphale’s first instinct is to reach out and clasp Crowley’s clenched fist - but he can’t, not here. Not in public. Gabriel cornered him just the other day here in the park, a highly disturbing fact he’s kept from Crowley. 

Crowley wriggles in frustration, shaking the bench, then presses his palms flat between his thighs as if to hold himself still. “I took care of him,” Crowley says plainly, trying to disguise the sound of pain so thick that Aziraphale can nearly smell it rolling off of him.

“But surely, if we can stop things...you could find him again?” Aziraphale suggests. “You could just reconnect with him.”

“Me,” Crowley replies. “Right. Yes.” His knuckles crack, and Aziraphale realizes that Crowley is squeezing his hands so tightly between his legs to keep himself reigned in, his skin blanching up his wrists. He looks straight at Aziraphale, then. “Just me.”

“I’d help you, of course,” Aziraphale amends. “As a team. We do make quite a team, don’t we?”

Crowley abruptly stands up and walks away from the bench, a few tight paces, then turns back to appraise him. Sitting on the bench, Aziraphale feels so small.

“Why d’you talk to me like you’ve never fucked me?” Crowley says, his voice so low and poisonous that Aziraphale leans forward to hear him. And when he does, Aziraphale can feel his own shock, then his own quick temper flares hot and righteous behind his breastbone.

“Not here, for God’s sake,” he hisses, standing up to face the taller man. “Have you no sense of self-preservation?”

“Self preservation!” Crowley mimics. “My apologies, oh faultless one. Allow me to introduce myself. How do you do, call me Crowley, I do believe I’ve had my tongue stuck straight up your -”

“Enough,” Aziraphale says savagely, and now he’s the one not keeping his voice down. “If you insist on behaving like a - like an ill-bred -”

“Demon?” Crowley interrupts. “Like a demon?”

“This conversation is over,” Aziraphale huffs, and now it’s his turn to stomp away from the bench, from the park, from this infuriating creature. He doesn’t turn even though Crowley continues to talk. 

“Like hell it is!” Crowley shouts after him. “Aziraphale! Like hell it is!”

He’s still ready to fight when Crowley slams the door to the bookshop later that evening. He bristles as soon as he hears the familiar footsteps. But he looks at Crowley and the demon is deflated, somehow less corporeal. The anger dissipates immediately, replaced by concern.

He looks like death. Aziraphale would know.

“Are you all right, my dear?” He asks, despite himself, clasping his hands in worry.

“Fine,” Crowley says shortly. He drops down gracelessly into his usual armchair. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

“I do so hate arguing with you, you know,” Aziraphale says. “It’s just - well, I’m quite certain that we’re being _watched_.”

“I’m sure,” Crowley agrees. His voice is tired. If something else has happened, he doesn’t share it. For a lack of anything better to do, knowing he’s partly to blame for the spat - and they do seem to be spatting more and more recently - he pours Crowley a glass of whisky from the half-empty bottle in his desk drawer. Crowley accepts it without comment. “Just hard to accept that we’re close to the end.”

Aziraphale reaches out to smooth a section of Crowley’s unruly hair. The demon catches his hand, holds it against his cheek. It’s cool to the touch, as it always is; Aziraphale stops for a moment, taking in the sight of him, yellow light from the outdated fixtures ringing his tired face.

They don’t talk about the fight - they rarely do. Aziraphale is tempted to tell him about the girl’s book, about what he’s discovered - but the way Crowley’s looking at him stops him. Instead, he kneels in front of the demon. He lifts his hands again to Crowley’s face, gently sliding the sunglasses off the bridge of his aquiline nose. Crowley’s strong, graceful hands cover his own and he cradles the strong lines of the demon’s face as he kisses him: long, lingering.

“Just to be clear,” Aziraphale says quietly, “I know exactly where your tongue has been.”

_*** December 2020 ***_

It’s his fifth visit to the witch’s cottage. Somehow, he’s now a part of her life - they’ve only spent a handful of days together, but she makes him feel as though he belongs, as if he’s important. He hasn’t felt that way about a human in decades.

He’d just called to check in and then when she told him - breathless, “Newt and I are getting married!” - he’d felt just the smallest stab of jealousy before happiness flooded in.

So when she asked him to come down, he couldn’t help but recommend a local baker. She’d eaten with gusto and enthusiasm, giggling and making _him_ giggle, tucking her arm into his with Newt trailing good-naturedly behind them. She’s a warm, steady, intangible light: less like these modern bulbs and more like the remembered flicker of candles, lanterns, gaslight lamps. Something a little out of touch but more beautiful because of it.

No wonder Crowley loves her. He doesn’t take to humans often, but when he does - he’s theirs for life. 

He didn’t plan to spend the night, doesn’t even want to stay for dinner - he’s so full from the cake tasting - but Anathema pours him tea, and then she serves him dinner, and then she hands him a wine glass. Newt drifts in and out of the conversation, innocuous, drawn to Anathema like a lodestone. He’s not perturbed by any of this: angel, demon, broken hearts. His life revolves only around Anathema, and here in their quiet garden he has blossomed into a gentle, thoughtful man. 

But over dinner, Aziraphale can’t stop talking about Crowley. _Shut up, you idiot_ , he screams internally but every other word out of his mouth is an adoration or confirmation about the wonder that is Crowley. Anathema allows him to effuse while Newt watches him, carefully, out of the corners of his guileless blue eyes. 

Now Aziraphale lies awake in the dark in the little attic room, staring at the ceiling, hating himself for his tendency to ramble. Hating himself for being able to hear them talking downstairs.

“Are you going to tell him where he is?”

“No,” the witch replies. “No, I won’t do that. He trusts me. It’s his decision, not mine.” And Newt accepts this, doesn’t ask again. And then he hears their bodies slide together. She whispers Newt’s name into his neck, soft damp skin pressed together. Two humans, in their safe little life. It’s a life, Aziraphale finally accepts, that Crowley wanted to give to him. And he thrust it away, too scared. Too small.

Bitterly, he turns to stare at the wall. The gentle huffing turns to the even, deep sound of sleep. When he’s sure they are both dreaming, he stands up and slips out into the small, neat garden of Jasmine Cottage.

Aziraphale closes his eyes in irritation. Surely, after 6000 years, he should be able to sense him - shouldn’t they have the same magnetic connection that Newt and Anathema share? But there’s nothing, only the empty, cold night. 

There is a thick hedgerow around Anathema’s garden, and a single, gnarled apple tree grows in the corner facing the street. Aziraphale, standing in his old-fashioned pajamas, stands facing it, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

It hits him, then, with all the force of two planets slamming together: he’s lost Crowley. There’s no way to undo what he’s done. He’s lost him, and he doesn’t know how to get him back. He staggers a little, and then sinks to his knees.

He’d crawl on his knees to Crowley, if only he knew where to find him. 

For the first time since the Apocalypse, he prays.

“Dear God,” he whispers. “Keep him safe. Let him be somewhere that he can breathe easily, and somewhere Heaven and Hell don’t care to find him.” He draws a long, shaky breath. What would She think, to hear her angel wish for a world without Her influence? It’s impossible. And ridiculous. It’s unforgivable. “Lord, hear this poor sinner -”

“Oh, I don’t think you need to go that far,” a quiet voice breaks the stillness of the garden.

He stays kneeling under the spreading branches of the apple tree, lips moving in silent prayer, a language he thought he’d forgotten. He doesn’t hear the soft step of Anathema, and startles at her voice. 

“Do you know what happened?” He asks, voice a thread, close to breaking. “All of it, I mean? All - well, everything?” He doesn’t make sense. But she understands. What a gift. 

“Yes,” she replies, as she kneels down beside him. He’s startled. He never thought witches might pray, but here she is, head bowed and hands clasped. 

“Then how can you say I’m not guilty? How can he ever forgive me?”

“Can you imagine,” Anathema replies, “that perhaps he already has?” 

“No,” Aziraphale says heavily. The enormity of his mistakes, all his stupid, arrogant, hurtful mistakes - weigh him down. “It’s unimaginable.” The quiet presses in on him, so painful he gasps.

She clicks her tongue softly. “Aziraphale, you know I consider you a friend. I can tell, even if you can’t, that you’ve been punishing yourself for too long over all these choices you’ve made, real and perceived. But do you think, maybe, that Crowley has loved you despite all of it? Humans are flawed - I know you know this. Couldn’t angels be flawed, too?”

“That’s not part of the Great Plan,” he replies quietly. It sounds weak, even to him.

“Why not? Why wouldn’t it be? Nothing can be perfect. Think how boring it would be.” 

He hesitates for a moment, hating himself for wanting to know. _Needing_ to know.

“Is he...he’s all right, though? You said he was safe. Safe and all right are different.” He doesn’t dare ask if he’s happy. _I don’t think I could handle him being happy without me, selfish as that is._

“Yes,” she says gently. “Truly. He has a lovely home. He’s comfortable. It’s quiet. Not too many people around.”

Aziraphale can’t imagine Crowley living somewhere quiet. He’s a city creature - he’s always been drawn to the noise, the lights, and of course the sea of humanity offered by cities. Crowley in the quiet countryside? He can’t picture it, which makes him ache all the way to his bones. “He isn’t lonely?”

“I can’t say. I see him quite a lot. Keep up with him, you know. He seems okay to me.”

“And he’s...he’s eating enough?”

“He looks fine. He looks good,” she reassures him. “He’s a big boy, Aziraphale,” she adds, and he chuckles at that. 

“How - erm, how long is his hair?” He asks, voice wistful, and it’s not what Anathema was expecting, from the look in her eyes. “It’s just. Well. He changes it, sometimes.”

“Quite a bit longer than it was last year,” she offers, thinking. “Um. Down to here, I’d say?” She reaches out, touches Aziraphale’s collar bone softly. “And wavy.” He covers her hand with his.

“Like when Adam was born,” he muses, though Anathema of course can’t answer that. She puts her other hand on his shoulder, holding him steady, and there is an entire universe reflected in her eyes.

When she speaks again, she’s changed the subject entirely. “Will you come to my wedding, Aziraphale? Newt and mine’s?”

He blinks. “Erm. Well, of course, I’d love to - but - won’t that be awkward? I assume, you know, that Crowley…” he trails off, embarrassed. Ashamed that the thought fills him equally with delight and with dread. To see Crowley, after all these months - what if he ignores me? _What if he doesn’t?_

“Crowley wouldn’t do anything to ruin my wedding,” Anathema says confidently. “And you wouldn’t either, would you?”

“Of course not!” He scowls. “Never. Not after how kind you’ve been to me. To us.”

“So come.”

“I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do to him, Anathema.”

She frowns for a moment, biting her lip, as if racing to think of an argument which could convince him. Then she smiles, pulls her hands away from his neck, stands up and dusts off her knees. “I have an idea,” she tells him. “I’ll be right back.”

She’s back before he can think much about it, a tattered deck of cards in her hands. She holds them out to him. “Pick three,” she says. “Don’t think. Just choose.”

From a lifetime of training, he obeys, and looks down at his selection. He hands them back over to her. “I’m sorry, dear girl. I don’t know what these mean.” He smiles, despite himself. “They’re banned, you know. Upstairs.”

She rolls her eyes at that. Taking them back she studies them briefly, then looks up at Aziraphale over the top of the cards. And she smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece to "Tumbling Down" from Aziraphale's perspective, which I have been sitting on for nearly six months now. One of those things that just demanded to be written, you know how it goes!
> 
> In this world, let's pretend that Adam also stopped COVID-19, not just the Apocolypse.


End file.
